Week 3: Cognitive Development
pg. 116-130, including box 4.1 on pg. 129
developemtnal theroies give us a framework to understand important phenomena
ex. piaget’s theory helps us understand that infants younger than 8 months react to disappearnce of an object as if it stopped existing entirely!!!
developmental theories raise crucial questions about human nature
if ovject permanence real, do babies think mom ceases to exist when tehy cant see her?
development theories lead to better understanding of children
cognitive development
growth of perception, attention, language, problem solving, reasoning, memory, conceptual undersatnding, intelligence
social development
growth of emotions, personality, relationships with peers and family members, self understanding, aggression and moral behaviour
this chapters on cogntivie and social theories
5 theories of cognitive development: piagetian, information-processing, core-knowledge, sociocultural and dynamic-systems
PIAGET’S THEORY
nature and nurture
nature and nurture interact to produce cognitive development
nature: kid acting and learning from expeirence, integrating particular observations into coherent knoweldge
continuity/discontinuity
main sources of continuity are 3 processes
assimilation, accomodation, equilibration
assimulation
process by which people incorporate incoming info into concepts they already know
ex. “see a red ball and go “toy!!”
accomodation
improving current undersatnding to new experiences
ex. “sees a 4 legged creature, goes “dog!” but it might be a cat. so you go “okay theres other characteristics that seperate from cat and dog”
equilibration
process of balancing asismilation and accommodation to create stable understanding
equilibration: 3 phases
fist they dont see discrpenecies, then new info needs them to reevluation (then in state of disequilibrium), see whats wrong, but dont know what to do about it, so teyre confused. so tehy work harder to make it better
PIAGETS THEORY
VIEW OF CHILDREN’S NATURE
mentally activ efrom moment of birth
metnal and physical ctivity contribute greately for development
3 of most important parts of children’s constructive processes are generating hypotheses, performing experiments, and drawing conclusions from observations
WHICH IS LITERALLY THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS!!!! “THE CHILD AS SCIENTIST” IN TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE WORLD
piaget also assumes that children learn many important lessons on their own rather than depedning on a friend
CENTRAL DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES
nature and nurture
sources of continuity
continuity/discontinuity
main sources of continuity are 3 processes
assimilation, accomodation, equilibration
assimulation
process by which people incorporate incoming info into concepts they already know
ex. “see a red ball and go “toy!!”
accomodation
improving current undersatnding to new experiences
ex. “sees a 4 legged creature, goes “dog!” but it might be a cat. so you go “okay theres other characteristics that seperate from cat and dog”
equilibration
process of balancing asismilation and accommodation to create stable understanding
equilibration: 3 phases
fist they dont see discrpenecies, then new info needs them to reevluation (then in state of disequilibrium), see whats wrong, but dont know what to do about it, so teyre confused. so tehy work harder to make it better
sources of discontinuity
qualitative change
children of diff ages, think in diff ways. so like 5 years, they concevie mroality in terms fo consequences, later they conceive it in terms of intent
ex. 5 year old: “one person accidentally broke jar of cookies vs one person who stole one cookie. person who broke jar is bad. 8 year old says opposite bcz consqeunces vs intent”
broad applicability:
its in eaach stage and it influences children’s thinking across diverse topics and contexts
brief transitions
before entering a new stage, children pass through brief transitional period in which they fluctaute between tinking like the old, then thinking like the new, then thinking like the old
invariant sequence
everyone progresses through all these stages in the same order without skipping any
THE FOUR STAGES
the sensorimotor stage
birth to 2 years
infants intelligence expressed through sensory and motr abilties
allow them to learn about objects and ppl to make rudimentary forms of fundamental concepts such as time, space, and causality
infants live largely in here and now, intelligence bound to immediate perceptions and actions
over first 2 years, INSANE GROWTH
brain weight actually grows 3 times larger between birth and age 3
they have a ton of reflexes (grasping, turning towards noise)
during first month, they modify reflexes to be more adaptive
ex. adjust sucking on nipple to make it more efficient
over first few months, infants begin to organize seperate reflexes into larger behaviours on own bodies
ex. instead of being limited to exercising grasping and sucking reflexes seperately, THEY INTEGRATE
so when object touches palm, they can grasp, bring to mojuth AND SUCK IT
YOOOOOOOOOOOO COMBO POWER UNLOCKED
middle of first year, care more about the world around them (ex. they keep repeating actions that produce pleasurable or interesting results, like squeezing a duck over and over to make it squeak)
OBJECT PERMANENCE
look for things that disappeared from sight (ex. peek a boo doesnt work anymore)
A-not-B error
8 to 12 month olds, reached for and found hidden objects several times in one place
, but when you find it to be hidden somehwere else, you should go to that other place, but hey dont do this until 1st birthday
at 1 year, they actively explore the other ways objects can be used
dropping object sto see what happens, banging cups to see what sounds it makes
in last half year of sensorimotor stage
ifnants can form enduring mental reps
first sight: DEFFERED IMITATION
repetition of other people’s behaviour minutes, hours, or even days after its occured
preoperational stage
2 - 7 years
able to represent experiences in lagnauge and mental imagery
allows them to remember expeirences for longer, more sophisticated
preoperational —> yougn children’s inability to perform certain mental operations (not operational enough)
like its hard to think of two dimensions at hte ame time
development of symbolic representations
using card to represent a phone —> symbolic representations
using a word or thought to stanad for another
as children grow up, they rely less on self-generated symbols an more on conventional ones
egocentrism
seeing world only from one’s own point of view
4 year olds seeing mountains from different perspectives, hard time with differnet perspectives (hey what would they see if they sat on the other side?)
also having like two differnet convos when talkng to each other
egocentric speech becomes less common wtih time, chilren become better able to envision spatail persepctives other than their own during preoperational period
centration
young children focus on single object or event a process piaget called centration
ex. balance-scale problems
the one on right should go down, but theyre sooooooo focused on the WEIGHT (the one thing theyre centered on), that they dont realize the right answer
conservation cocnept
conservaiton of liquid quantity, conservation of solid quantity, conservation of number
tasks used to measure children’s understand employ a 3 phase procedure
1. children given 2 objects identical in quantity, or number.
ex. two glasses of orange juice. they agree thyere qual in both sets. but tehy change a dimension, like orange jucie is put in a narrower cup.
theyre then asked, hey is it equal or not?
theyll say no cause a diemsnion has changed. theyll get better at this with time
EX. kid has 2 cookies, other kid has one cookie, so they break the other kids cookie into two
concrete operatioanl stage
7-12 years
can reason logically about concrete objects and events
ex. poruing water from one glass to taller narrower one leaves amt of water unchanged
BUT concrete operational, can’t think abstractly
they can think in multiple dimensions now!!!!!!!!
so consrvation of whatever the fuck, tehyr’e so good
but now!! the pendulum thing, where like they fial to undersatnd that fater motion miht be because of length of string or height string was sdropped rather than weight of object
formal operational stage
12+
think deeply not only about concrete stuff, but also abstract stuff!! can perform scintifci expeirences and draw conclusions EVEN IF THEY DIFFER FROM PRIOR BELIEFS!!
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REASONING HERE AND REASONING BFEORE IS ABSTRACT THINKING!!!!!11
piaget believed that NOT ALL ADULTS REACH THIS STAGE LMFAOOOOOOO
he said if u reach this stage, you can think about deeper questions concerning truth, justice and morality. accounts for the fact that many first acquire a taste for science fuction during adolescnece
sicence fiction: thinkinga bout the wrold in many possibilies than just whats strictly possible
PIAGET’S LEGACY
vague about mechanisms that give rise to children’s thinking and produce cognitive growth
lots of descriptions BUT NOT ABOUT PROCESSES (brain or cognitive processes)
infants and young children are more cognitively competent than piaget recognized
so like he gave them really hard tests, (like you have to go and reach for the object to test for object permanence), but other test tell us that acc they look by 3 months of age, so theres something htere!!
piaget’s theory understates contribution of social world to cognitive development
he just doesnt look at broader culture that ACTUALLY SHAPES COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT?
stage model depicts children’s thinking as being more consistent than it is
according to piaget, once they enter a stage, thinking consistnatly shows charactsriitcs of that age, but more research has shown that its more variable
by 6, ur good at consrvation by number, by 8 ur good at ocnservation by solid sorta thing